Headliner fabric getting a bit saggy, not the backing though

[utherjorge]

I'm putting my headliner back in shortly. I have a couple of places where the fabric looks like someone got a fine brush stuck in the fabric, and pulled: loose fabric pulled down.

I vaguely remember seeing a way to use spray starch and a hard plastic comb/brush to push loose fabric like that back into place. Anyone know of something similar?

Of course, I remember seeing crafty crap like that done by my ex-wife, so I may have hallucinated during all of the pain.

The backing is in great shape. Ideas? Anyone done this exact thing?

 

[Keitha]

I stripped my headliner off the backing, bought some new material (better than stock stuff), and used spray adheasive to apply the new liner. It came out great and did not cost much at all.

 

[ccarley]

You might be better in the long run to pull all the fabric off, and remove the foam material which degrades and flies all over the place... although in a K5 it probably isn't as bad as in a Suburban.

Finding some fabric & gluing it on to the cleaned backing really isn't all that difficult, and comes out looking pretty nice. I used some "speaker box" fabric from Jo-Ann, and 3M headliner spray glue:

http://carleynet.net/familypictures/view_album.php?set_albumName=album66

Good luck...
Clay

 

[Slade001]

I did this. It takes 4 or 5 days to get the kit and about an hour to install. Best $35 I've spent on the truck so far. It REALLY looks good too.

http://coloradok5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=309301

 

[Blue85]

I doubt you can stick it back up because the factory glue/foam deteriorates into dust. I would expect it to either turn out lumpy or have the appearance of hard glue spots soaking through. Replacement fabric is pretty cheap. When I went to Jo-Ann fabrics for mine they had like 12 colors in stock. It's foam-backed fabric and actually labeled automotive headliner.

 

[utherjorge]

OK: has anyone done this with black? How does it come out? I'm going completely black with the trim...wondering if anyone has a pic of that between the different methods.

 

[Keitha]

I found the material and specific spray adheasive (higher concentration of adheasive to accelerant) at a local car appolstery supply shop (imagine that). They had a great selection.
All in all it was not too tough a job at all. The liner pannels in the Suburban are huge and take some carefull layout of the fabric, but I did it solo. Get a helper or 2 and it should be really easy.